Creative Thinking: A How-To Guide

Creative thinking is a potential we are all born with. If you don’t use that potential, it is probably because you don’t know and apply the simple principles for developing it. We can remedy that right now.

The two basic principles of creative thinking are:

1. There are methods and techniques of creative thinking.

2. Making these methods and techniques a part of your mental habits will make creative thinking easy and automatic.

An entrepreneur sees the potential profit in a situation, because his mind is trained for that. A lawyer sees the potential problems, because that is how his mind is trained. How we repeatedly think becomes a habit, and that is how you train a mind. Learn the techniques of creative thinking, use them until they are a habit, and creative thinking will be as natural for you as lying is for a politician.

The Techniques Of Creative Thinking

There are dozens of creative problem solving techniques you can learn to use. “Concept-combination,” for example, will have you mixing roses and clocks to create the first alarm clock that wakes you up with a gentle release of fragrance. Use the technique of “random-presentation” and a cell phone can give the idea to do your dictation with a pocket tape recorder while you walk, so you’ll have time for exercise and still get your work done.

Creative thinking goes beyond just solving specific problems or inventing new things. A truly creative mind is always coming up with the questions too, not just the solutions. To be more creative all the time, focus on three things:

1. Challenge your assumptions. What if a restaurant didn’t have employees? Customers could pay a machine as they enter, and feed themselves at a buffet. If everything was as automated as possible, maybe one owner-operator could run a large restaurant alone. Challenge everything. Do you have to go to work? Do pools need water? Is education always a good thing?

2. Change your perspective. Imagining a dog’s thoughts about your busyness could clue you in to the unecessary things you do. Thinking dollars-per-day instead of per-hour could give you a plan to let employees go home when they finish a certain quota. Greater efficiency would be almost certain, and you could adjust daily pay and quotas so both you and employees made more money. Look at everything from several perspectives.

3. Let your ideas run wild. Flying furniture seems silly, but it may lead to the idea of a hover-lifter. Slide the device under furniture and it lifts it with a cushion of air, making for easy moving. Don’t stifle your creativity. Relax, let ideas come, and know that you can always discard them later.

Creating Creative Thinking Habits

To make the above techniques into an automatic part of your thinking, just use them enough. Usually it takes several weeks to develop a habit, so you need a way to remind yourself each day during that time. Try writing a few of your favorite techniques on a card and carrying it with you. Pull it out throughout the day and apply the techniques to anything. Soon, more creative thinking will be a normal part of your life.

Mind Power Through Mindfulness

Basic mindfulness exercises put you in a state of awareness where distractions are let go, and your mind power is able to function more effectively. They help you think more clearly and concentrate better. They are also easy exercises to do.

More Mind Power in Minutes

A basic mindfulness exercise starts with sitting down, relaxing and breathing deeply through your nose. Close your eyes and be aware of your breath going in and out. After a minute, move your attention to your body, one part at a time, noting sensations of cold, hot, tight, sore and anything else you identify. In a few minutes, start listening to sounds in the room, without thinking about them. Just listen.

When it feels right, open your eyes and look around as if you are seeing for the first time. Rest your eyes on an object for half a minute, examining it without talking about it in your mind. Then move to another object, and another, while still maintaining an awareness of your body, your breathing, and any sounds. Stay in this state of mindfulness until you are ready to get up.

Being aware of your body, breath and immediate enviroment, puts you more fully “in the moment.” Your mind is in a very receptive state, with fewer mental distractions that prevent clear thinking. Doing a mindfulness exercise before important mental tasks will give you greater mind power, specifically more focus and concentration.

An Even Easier Mindfulness Trick

Try this one today: When you feel stressed, stop, and carefully watch yourself to identify what’s bothering you. Maybe you’re expecting something bad to happen, or an argument is going on just below the surface of your consciousness, or you’re worried about something, or in pain in some way. Make a note of everything you find.

Then deal with these mind-irritants. Make a phone call that’s on your mind, take an aspirin, apologise to whomever you were fighting with. Write things on tomorrow’s list, to get them off your mind. If there’s nothing you can do right now, tell yourself that. Do this exercise, and you’ll feel less stressed, and more able to concentrate on the tasks at hand. You’ll have more mind power today.

The Word Can’t Does Not Exist In My Vocab

I remember when I was growing up, my parents used to become vey annoyed with me when I stated that I could not do my homework or could not do other things I had been asked to do.

They would respond with the advice that I could do anything in life as long as I believed in myself and as long as I was willing to work very hard. The word, can’t, does not exist in my vocab Steve, I sometimes find certain tasks difficult however always believe that I will be able to succeed, my father would say.

He worked very hard to make me understand and to take on board this message, which would eventually prove to be a valuable lesson for me to learn. It has helped me to achieve many things and to also overcome some of the issues I had in my life.

School and employment

I was not the brightest student at school and as previously mentioned would often say that I could not complete the work through my lack of belief in my own ability. Through hard work and determination though, I left school with an impressive set of examination results. I continued this success into my work life and at the age of twenty-two had passed a number of insurance exams and had become a qualified financial advisor.

Stuttering

From the age of four I had suffered with the speech impediment known as stammering or stuttering. By my early twenties I had had enough of this struggle and went about trying to overcome the stutter. It proved to be very difficult and my progress was slow. I had superb support from my family who would always pick me up when I was feeling down and who also continued to ram home the message of never giving up. During the hours of practice I would regularly state that I could not do it, my family would not accept this and kept on at me to keep believing and to think positive.

After nearly a year of working and practicing very hard I managed to eradicate the stutter which is my biggest and proudest achievement in life.

Weight

Throughout my life I have had problems with my weight. I was never happy being fat and at the age of twenty decided to try to lose the weight. It seemed to take forever to achieve the weight and size I had targeted and as usual there were many times when I was close to giving up. From the lessons learnt and with the support from my family, eventually I did lose the excess fat.

Stephen Hill

Positive Mind, Successful Life

It took me a long time to realise the benefits of positive thinking. I had often heard people mention that if you think positive, positive things will happen to you, I used to think they were a bit weird. I now believe they were right and this article explains why.

Growing up through the difficult teenage years and into my early twenties, I felt very sorry for myself. I used to think I was the most unluckiest person in the world. I had a bald patch the size of a ten pence piece on my head, a speech impediment(stutter), I was overweight to the point of being fat, and was short for a male(5ft4).

I believed that I received more mickey taking out of me than anyone else, and life was certainly a struggle. To meet members of the opposite sex when you have a lack of confidence and a speech impediment is not easy. To gain work, order drinks, socialise in general, these were all difficult for me. Everyone else seemingly breezed and eased there way through life.

One day I was at work and a colleague of mine who was about thirty years older than me, commented that I was a very depressive person. I disagreed with him and was quite shocked, I believed that most people worried and stressed about things. He went on by stating that I was always negative about most things in life, always moaning about this or that and very rarely smiled. He went on to say that he had used to be like me, always depressed, moody and stressed until he was given some advice when he was aged thirty. He then proceeded to give me the same advice.

THE ADVICE:

When you feel down, depressed and sorry for yourself, watch the news and read the newspapers and you will see that there are many people worse off than you, and that you are actually one of the lucky ones.

I thought about this and started to follow what he had said. I now realise how stupid I had been. To be born and live in the UK, I am one of the lucky ones.